City of Industry, California, January 14th, 2014 – GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd., a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, today announced official support for next generation AMD A-Series APUs based on the highly anticipated ‘Kaveri’ architecture. GIGABYTE ‘Kaveri’ support includes current AMD A88X and A55 (rev3.0) platform motherboards plus forthcoming A78 platform motherboards.

“By enabling support on current GIGABYTE AMD motherboards for these new AMD A-Series APUs, GIGABYTE ensures our customers are able to take advantage of a whole new approach to PC architecture design,” commented Henry Kao, Vice President of GIGABYTE Motherboard Business Unit. “Combining the highest level of quality design with the most advanced set of features, GIGABYTE FM2+ motherboards offer the best user experience for these new A-Series APUs.”

“These FM2+ Series motherboards from GIGABYTE are the ultimate showcase for our new A-Series APUs,” said Bernd Lienhard, corporate vice president and general manager, Client Business Unit, AMD. “In collaboration with GIGABYTE, AMD is proud to enable a truly optimized user experience in terms of raw computer performance while creating an industry-leading visual and audio experience with the latest generation of our APUs.”

GIGABYTE FM2+ Series Motherboards
GIGABYTE FM2+ Series motherboards showcase a number of features and technologies that separate them from the competition, including GIGABYTE AMP-UP Audio which includes an upgradable OP Amp, studio-grade Nichicon capacitors and Gain Boost switches. True Digital Power Delivery is combined with Triple Display Support including AMD Dual Graphics and AMD Eyefinity Technology support. GIGABYTE FM2+ series motherboards also provide native 4K resolution support via Display port and HDMI ports.

GIGABYTE FM2+ Series motherboards also integrate a range of features designed to ensure the long term stability and longevity of your PC. GIGABYTE DualBIOS ensures users are protected from BIOS failure, while an exclusive 2x Copper PCB design optimizes heat dissipation from the critical power delivery areas of the motherboard. One-Fuse-per-Port ensures each USB port has its own dedicated power fuse that prevents unwanted USB port failure.

AMD Kaveri Platform Highlights
The latest AMD A10-7850K and A10-7700K APUs integrate an enhanced CPU core based on the ‘Steamroller’ architecture with a new and updated Radeon Graphics core. Supporting native 8 GT/s PCI Express gen 3.0 and DX11.1 graphics, these new AMD A-Series APUs also offer native support for 4K resolution displays on HDMI and DisplayPort.

Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) Maintained by the HSA Foundation, HSA is a system architecture that allows accelerators such as the graphics processor (GPU) to operate at the same processing level as the system's CPU, providing up to 50 per cent more GPU performance and up to 20 per cent more x86 instructions executed per cycle compared to previous implementations. The new AMD A10 series APUs are the first desktop PC processors to implement the performance advantages of HSA.

AMD TrueAudio Technology
The latest AMD A-Series APUs are also the first equipped with AMD TrueAudio Technology a new programmable audio pipeline that fundamentally redefines how digital audio is processed. By allowing the graphics cores to handle sound processing for spatialization, reverb, limiters and simultaneous voice processing, game developers have greater artistic freedom than ever before, allowing for a vastly more realistic and compelling audio experience.

ASUS recently announced two new socket FM2+ motherboards that are compatible with AMD’s upcoming “Kaveri” Accelerated Processing Units (APUs). The new boards are the A88XMA and A55BM-A/USB3 and use the A88X and A55 AMD chipsets respectively. Pricing and availability have not yet been released, but the new boards confirm that users will need new motherboards in order to take advantage of AMD’s next generation APUs (though the new FM2+ boards are backwards compatible with the existing APUs, it will not work the other way around). Both motherboards should be available around the time of the Kaveri processor launch (2H 2013).

The AMD A88XMA FM2+ Motherboard.

Both the ASUS A88XMA and A55BM-A/USB3 motherboards come in the mATX form factor. The boards both have FM2+ processor sockets and expansion slots including a single PCI-E 3.0 x16 slot, one PCI-E 2.0 x1 slot, and one legacy PCI slot. The support for PCI-E 3.0 is new for AMD motherboards, and the extra bandwidth may prove useful for as graphics cards get faster and AMD works on its hUMA and HSA architectures to create a layer of virtual memory that can be simultaneously addressed by CPUs and GPUs. There will still be latency to deal with over the PCI-E bus, but more data can be moved back and forth in the same amount of time.

The two ASUS FM2+ motherboards also share the same rear IO options, which include:

2 x PS/2

3 x Video outputs:

1 x HDMI

1 x DVI

1 x VGA

2 x USB 3.0

2 x USB 2.0

1 x Gigabit Ethernet

3 x Analog audio jacks

The RJ45 jacks are backed by a Realtek 8111G Gigabit Ethernet controller and the audio jacks are handled by a Realtek ALC887-VD chipset. Finally, they also have UEFI BIOSes in common, but from there the two boards diverge in hardware capabilities.

The ASUS A88XMA is the higher-end of the two boards, and features a FM2+ socket, four DDR3 DIMM slots, and six SATA 3 6Gbps ports. It utilizes the AMD A88X chipset which is aimed at enthusiast platforms.

ASUS' A55BM-A/USB3 budget motherboard.

On the other hand, the A55BM-A/USB3 motherboard uses the cheaper A55 chipset. That motherboard features an FM2+ socket, two DDR3 DIMM slots, and six right angle SATA 2 3Gpbs ports. The A55Bm-A/USB3 should be significantly cheaper as a result of the A55 chipset and resulting hardware reductions. In most other respects, ASUS has managed to make the two baords remarkably similar, including aesthetics and basic board layout.

According to Bit-Tech, the two boards are are part of a larger family of boards with the new FM2+ sockets. As such, we should see additional ASUS boards that fill in the gaps between the two models closer to AMD's Kaveri launch. As noted above, ASUS has not provided official pricing or release date information yet.

City of Industry, California, October 28, 2012 – GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd., a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, today launched its latest HD series motherboards, bringing unprecedented dual digital display support, including HDMI and DVI, to a range of value segment motherboard models.

The new GIGABYTE HD motherboard series defies the current ethos that means true digital display outputs are reserved for upper mainstream models, adding both HDMI and DVI ports to a range of motherboard models at attractive and affordable price points. All DIY enthusiasts can now enjoy true HD display capability using the most commonly integrated digital output technologies on today’s HD displays and TVs.

“The new GIGABYTE HD motherboard series means our customers can get much more bang-per-buck from their value segment motherboards,” commented Henry Kao, Vice President of GIGABYTE Motherboard Business Unit. “Adding dual digital display ports to this segment really sets GIGABYTE apart from the competition, raising the bar for value segment motherboard design.”

HD_WhiteMaking Digital Display Support a Standard Feature
Digital output technologies like HDMI are becoming the de-facto standard on most HDTVs and PC monitors, with the advantage of carrying both HD audio* and video signals over a single cable. As well as offering higher screen resolutions than analog display outputs, digital display outputs also offer support for the latest 3D media content as well as access to protected content via HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection).

Having access to dual digital displays is also a great way to increase productivity, offering much more on-screen real-estate than entry-level motherboards typically provide. GIGABYTE HD series motherboards are ideal for a range of business, office and education scenarios where adding an additional digital display or projector is paramount.

According to Tech Connect, ECS is about to release three ECS FM1 motherboards powered by the lighter A55 chipset to compliment the company’s higher end A75 boards. The new A55 based motherboards will be known as the A55F-A, A55F-M2, and the A55F-M3, the first being ATX and the remaining two boards being micro-ATX.

The new motherboards will support AMD’s A Series APUs and will feature one PCI-E x16 slot, Gigabit Ethernet, and one VGA connection. The standard ATX sized A55F-A will further have four DDR3 DIMM slots, five SATA II 3Gb/s ports, 12 USB 2.0 ports, and HDMI and DVI video connectors. The A55F-M2 on the other hand with receive two DDR3 DIMM slots, six SATA 3Gb/s ports, 12 USB 2.0 ports, and HDMI and optional DVI connections. Lastly, the A55F-M3 has two DDR3 DIMM slots, four SATA 3Gb/s ports, and eight USB 2.0 ports.

More photos of the new boards can be seen here. Price and availability of the new A55 chipset motherboards have not yet been released.